It's no secret to anyone that while Apple sued HTC, the lawsuit is more about Google than HTC itself. Since Android is open source, and owned by no one, it's kind of hard to go after Google itself, and as such, HTC was the prime target, since it is the number one Android smartphone maker. The New York Times has an in-depth article up about the subject, with a whole boatload of quotes from people within the two companies, and it paints a picture of all this being a highly emotional and personal vendetta - especially from Apple's side.

I'm going to have to agree with the previously linked article: the lawsuit is indeed a bluff. Apple is challenging too many players in this market. Nokia, Palm, Microsoft, and others have more combined patents than Apple, and it can't hope to prevail based on IP alone. No, this is about slowing down Android adoption. Not sure if everyone heard this, but iPhone market share stalled and even declined last month, compared to Android. I'm looking forward to seeing market share numbers this month and next month. I'm betting that Android (and eventually Windows Phone 7) are going to start cutting deeply into Apple's market share. Which is phenomenal news for the market: It means that competition is alive and vibrant, and we'll be the beneficiaries.